Throughout the story, Yu details the roles that Asian men and women are subjected to from the objectified Dragon Lady to the Kung Fu Guy. Structured like a TV script, Yu introduces us to Willis Wu, an American-born man still defined first for being Asian - a perceived other. “Highly inventive and hilarious.Interior Chinatown is a quirky set-up for a story, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. Yu’s spirit of invention is infectious.”- The Sunday Times “Brimming with alternative universes, futuristic landscapes and gleeful metaphysics. Praise for How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe John Mandel, National Book Award finalist and author of The Glass Hotel This is an extraordinary book by an immensely talented writer.”- Emily St.

“ Interior Chinatown is wrenching, hilarious, sharp, surreal, and above all, original. These talents are front and center in the brilliant and hilarious Interior Chinatown, which satirizes the racist imagination and brings us deep into the humanity of those who suffer from-and struggle against-dehumanization.”- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

“I’m a big fan of Charles Yu’s writing because of his wit and inventiveness. “An acid indictment of Asian stereotypes and a parable for outcasts feeling invisible in this fast-moving world.”- Kirkus Reviews Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy-the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian man. WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2020 FOR FICTIONĪ deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, and escaping the roles we are forced to play-by the author of the infinitely inventive How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

Interior chinatown book review